American Dilemma, An
In 1938 the Carnegie Corporation commissioned Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish economist, to direct a two-year study of the condition of African-Americans. To assist him Myrdal employed forty-eight writers and researchers including Ralph Bunche and Kenneth B. Clark. Published in two volumes in 1944, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy has had an impact even beyond its sale of 100,000 copies.
The work depicted the ever-widening gap between the American principle of equality and the reality of African-American lives. Myrdal argued that discrimination in the South was due less to prejudice on the part of whites than to the failure of municipal authorities, including the police and the courts, to enforce the Constitution. He predicted, however, that the democratic principles inherent in the legal system would triumph. Racism would eventually disappear. Writing at a time when a majority of African-Americans still lived in the South, Myrdal underestimated the entrenched nature of discrimination in the North and thus was highly optimistic about the ability of America to resolve its racial problems.
An American Dilemma played a role in undermining discrimination when the Supreme Court cited the work as a footnote to its 1954 decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, outlawing school segregation. In arguing that "separate but equal" encouraged feelings of inferiority, the decision noted "And see generally Myrdal. An American Dilemma."
See also Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ; Bunche, Ralph; Racial Desegregation; Segregation.
